Duration of Combat

[Dunderscore]

This is impossible. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you aren't lying, but you must have encountered a hitherto-unknown bug if this is the case and you should fill out a bug report with the save file. Armies with a 10:1 advantage automatically stackwipe.

He posted a screenshot for proof in the OP Also I dunno why you people keep saying that but it isn't true and you can verify that for yourselves on the wiki

Edit: like seriously watch any youtube video of people playing this game; 400k troops fighting 40k doesn't just instantly stackwipe the army

notice how the Italian army here didn't instantly stackwipe the Croatians

Reducing morale to zero within the first two phases causes a stackwipe, fullstop
if any of you have played Prussia I'm sure you've seen yourself stackwipe AI armies larger than your own. It has nothing to do with size

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Eh its 12 months of passive manpower recovery too and also how long the reinforcements take if near power enemy nearby

You get the same amount of manpower across 12 months regardless of whether you assault the fort or siege it down. It's not a relevant factor in considering the tradeoff in manpower cost.

Having enemy troops near by is another matter obviously, because they can just attack you while you're at basically no morale mid-assault.

Well yeah its the deccan, basically every indian empire meets its fate there

I don't believe the reason for this was abnormally massive attrition while sieging in particular? What does this have to do with my criticism of carpeting a significant % of the world in guaranteed 3% baseline attrition?

Having lv1 forts more common like native americans get would be nice. But yeh 2k men in a fort costs 1 ducat maintenance , which is about same as 5k soldiers, or 3k cav, or 1 and a half k cannons. But then does the supplies to stock for a siege cost that much more than an army on the march which can move to new grazing grounds with the campaign season

We'd be forced to make a lot of assumptions that don't track 1:1 with history. The point remains that forts are cost-prohibitive to their value, and that doesn't have to be the case.

Armies with a 10:1 advantage automatically stackwipe.

Nope. There are exceptions, which has already been demonstrated.

I think at one point in EU 4 history it was more true than it is now. Fond memories of bbqftw getting attrition reduction > 100% and running around with 500+ stacks, stackwiping many AI armies and applying the 10:1 ratio rule even to non-breach fort assaults to instantly capture provinces for 5 MIL, lol.

 

[alexo22]

EU4 battles are just models. There's no need to take them so straight.

 

[fleetothemoon]

You guys are arguing about different things re stack wipes. It is true that stackwiping is harder in general with the recent patches, but it is also true that 10:1 stackwiping is still a thing. Ergo:

Please refer again to this post I lifted from Reddit: https://i.redd.it/yiafpy9cikm81.jpg

In any previous EU4 version this would be a stackwipe barring massive differences in tech + mountains defensive battle. What's going on with this game when we see results like this?

I've said this before but these updates made playing smaller countries much, much harder because quantity matters so much more now. Gone are the days of picking tactical battles and getting victories here or there, because the AI can simply reinforce with endless stacks even if they are far away. Endless manpower and forcelimit was already overpowered, it's even worse now.

That's not 10:1 ratio. You had 30k vs 8k. You need 80k to achieve 10:1 wipe.

He posted a screenshot for proof in the OP Also I dunno why you people keep saying that but it isn't true and you can verify that for yourselves on the wiki

Edit: like seriously watch any youtube video of people playing this game; 400k troops fighting 40k doesn't just instantly stackwipe the army

notice how the Italian army here didn't instantly stackwipe the Croatians

Reducing morale to zero within the first two phases causes a stackwipe, fullstop
if any of you have played Prussia I'm sure you've seen yourself stackwipe AI armies larger than your own. It has nothing to do with size

You showed a video of a full-routed zero morale army retreating. I don't think that's an indication at 10:1 stack wipe can't occur under normal circumstances.

Although, we should be aware that 10:1 stack wipe immunity is a thing for people who have sufficient tech/institution advantage over the other. Obviously because Western tech needs more buff than the rotw /s

 

[Dunderscore]

I don't think that's an indication at 10:1 stack wipe can't occur under normal circumstances.

i showed that engaging an army with 10x as many troops is not "an instant stackwipe".

again, stackwipes are caused by reducing the average morale to zero before they can retreat

 

[Atomcreator]

Yes don't you love it when the ottomans travel 1000 miles to reinforce that battle you should have won.

 

[PDXJon]

i showed that engaging an army with 10x as many troops is not "an instant stackwipe".

again, stackwipes are caused by reducing the average morale to zero before they can retreat

If my memory serves me right, there was a time that the ratio did determine stackwipes. I think there is a patch note about it being changed. I think there is another note saying stackwipes have been changed to make it even more difficult.

 

[MatthewP]

If my memory serves me right, there was a time that the ratio did determine stackwipes. I think there is a patch note about it being changed. I think there is another note saying stackwipes have been changed to make it even more difficult.

I’m playing on 1.32.2 and 10:1 stack wipes are definitely a thing, I’ve been using them to instantly kill 1-2k AI stacks. This has been in the game forever. I know there was a change relatively recently so they don’t work if the smaller stack is full combat width. If they were removed entirely it was since 1.32.2 and I honestly doubt it. Some people acting very certain of things when they’re clearly guessing on this thread.

edit: btw, it doesn’t work, and AFAIK has never worked, if the battle starts more even and becomes 10:1 later.

 

[The_Boominator]

He posted a screenshot for proof in the OP Also I dunno why you people keep saying that but it isn't true and you can verify that for yourselves on the wiki

Edit: like seriously watch any youtube video of people playing this game; 400k troops fighting 40k doesn't just instantly stackwipe the army

notice how the Italian army here didn't instantly stackwipe the Croatians

Reducing morale to zero within the first two phases causes a stackwipe, fullstop
if any of you have played Prussia I'm sure you've seen yourself stackwipe AI armies larger than your own. It has nothing to do with size

The timestamp you put in the video shows an army with 0 morale getting stackwiped by a smaller force because of another stackwipe condition with higher precedence.
Any army that retreats to a province that is already occupied by a hostile army is automatically stackwiped regardless of the size of the occupying army. Also, adding troops to an engagement will not result in a stackwipe even if it results in the achievement of a 10:1 ratio.

I believe that patch 1.31 also altered stackwipe conditions for natives re: European units and native uprisings. That said, it is highly, highly dubious that 2k troops lasted a week against 30k troops with equal mil tech even IF this condition for 10:1 stackwipes were not implemented. And as the people in the comments can confirm for you, as well as basic playtesting in the world editor, 10:1 stackwipes are still a thing barring the very specific circumstances I outlined above.

 

[Blizzrd33]

i showed that engaging an army with 10x as many troops is not "an instant stackwipe".

again, stackwipes are caused by reducing the average morale to zero before they can retreat

You don't know as much as you think you know on this topic.

 

[Jespoke]

The problem goes far beyond history. Even if you ignore history in the consideration entirely, having excessively long battles is a gameplay problem. The longer they are, the less troop positioning prior to the battle matters, and that's a bad thing from a pure gameplay design perspective.

Excessively long sieges are a problem for the same reason.

If we don't entirely ignore history, but consider that mechanics are instead heavily abstracting from a historical nod, it's also worth pointing out that nations didn't send huge % of armies far beyond borders precisely because they would not be able to return in time if attacked. In the game, you often have time to ship troops from India to Italy before a single fort falls. You also have time to march from Spain to that same fort in Italy before the battle finishes. These are nonsense outcomes historically of course, but they are also bad for gameplay.

Getting caught out with troop movements/strategic positioning should matter. Rapid transportation from naval advantage should matter (so you have incentive to invest in it and protect it). When you can reliably reinforce forts from across the world and battles from across a significant % of a continent, these things do not matter as much as they should.

I don't know how it would affect MP balance, but i would certainly appreciate if forts were changed to be faster to take but cheaper to maintain. The manpower cost of taking them could be adjusted with higher attrition.
As it stands I don't like that when anyone, including myself and the AI, maintains proper border fortifications, i barely even think of it as a good military decision, only as a terrible economic one.
The other part is that i want sieges lasting long enough to be reinforced by an army from across Siberia to be the exception instead of the norm.